A life in progress

Post #15: Currently Listening to — KDFC

Welcome to the fifteenth post ofthe Great Writing Challenge of 2012.Five days a week for six months, I will be given a topic to write about. The stipulation: it must be 250 words (or more), and positive in tone.If you would like to suggest topics for me to write about, please email me at TheRebeccaProject [at] gmail [dot] com.

Post #15: Currently Listening To -- KDFC

I love my job and the million things I have the opportunity to do each day, and as I discussed the other day, it’s just the mornings that ruin me. My office cubicle is rather large, with a great workstation with plenty of surface area. It’s climate controlled, with great neighbors like Rebecca T. I am rarely lacking for conversation, food or overheard ‘crazy’. And the coolest thing? I have my very own escape hatch.

If there’s one thing that really improves my productivity, it’s the Bay Area’s own classical KDFC. I have been listening to the station since I moved here permanently in 2009, and it’s a breath of fresh air. Following their frequency being sold last year, KDFC is now “listener supported”, and therefore, ad-free (which makes it so much better!).

The familiar voices stuck with the station, and I enjoy having Hoyt kicking off my incredibly early 8am starts, and try to coincide my breakfast with his ‘Mozart in the Morning’ segment at 9am. Dianne Nikolini ushers in the late morning with her beautiful voice and interesting tidbits she throws in. I love hearing her pronounce some of the names of the works she plays: and she does it without being at all pretentious, which is quite hard to do when you’re trying to say things in French.

Late afternoons are spent in a frenzy of activity with Ray White (not the realtor), and seeing what he pulls out for the Afternoon Out-of-School Requests. And nights like this, I enjoy nothing more than sitting down on the couch to write whilst the San Francisco Symphony takes me somewhere unexpected.

KDFC is the only radio station I listen to, and I’d like to credit my parents for instilling a love of classical music. They encouraged an appreciation of the arts by taking us to museums and concerts and recitals as children, and this continued this well on into adulthood. I mostly detested it as a kid, but that had more to do with being made to wear a dress than disliking the activity. Being afforded the opportunity for gallery previews and member evenings (with their free canapes and champagne) is something that I really loved being able to do with my parents as an adult. The Art Gallery of NSW is one of my favourite places and they certainly know how to put on fabulous member evenings. And it’s something I have really missed since relocating to the other side of the world.

KDFC makes my heart swell when I hear some of my favourite works by Tchaikovsky or Saint-Saëns. I’d love to see the SF Symphony in concert, with the enigmatic director and conductor, Michael Tilson-Thomas, or the renowned pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, or violinist Itzhak Perlman. That’s going on my Life List.

1 Comment

Thanks for your nice comments. And, hats off for the Rebecca Project. I’ve kept a journal for 30 plus years now and I don’t think I’d have the courage to blog my life in print like you. It’s very bold of you.

G’Day! I’m Rebecca.

G'day! I'm Rebecca, an intrepid Aussie who toddled off one day to travel the world. Now I'm lucky to call both San Francisco and Sydney home. So kick up your feet, settle in and enjoy the bits and pieces of my life in progress.